What I don't like about how the Canucks handled CH and KB4 is that they seem to be having issues between the coach and the players and in both cases the players lost. This can be expected from a GM like MG as he seems to be a guy who goes to bat for his guys and AV seems to be his guy.

All this talk about what CH did not do or could not skate yet he played only 71 NHL games. In 63 games this season he has 33 points and is on pace for 43 points which is more than Kesler/Sedin did in their first season. What more did they want from this kid? He could not skate is a comment I hear a lot, interesting as in the games I watched he did not seem to be that out played or out skated. He worked hard to come back and be good in his own end, his +8 puts him 8th on the team.

AV is an old style coach who has proven to like certain types of players and screws with the minds of the players he does not like and IMHO and when he acts like this it hurts the team more than helps. Look no further than last season in the playoffs, a KB4 who was not mind fucked by AV would have helped more than Alberts or even Rome. Kesler had an injury and no last year CH would not have helped but this year if Kesler went down CH would be a hell of a lot better than the scraps we picked up today.

In a few years maybe Kassian may be what we need but he will not help the team this playoffs more than CH. I would not mind this trade in the off season I just think it is a stupid trade now to do, none of the players we picked up today has any offensive potential like CH and come playoffs if Kesler or Sedin gets injured there is no one who can fill that spot.

Pretty shocking to see Silent G moved but I think HW's narrative of a lack of versatility doing him in makes a lot of sense - almost like he was a (very) rich man's Kyle Wellwood.

Meanwhile, in return we've got a poor man's Milan Lucic and a destitute man's Christian Ehrhoff by the sounds of it. Obviously both players are young enough to improve upon that, and it's good for the Canucks to have increased the number of young, improving players on their roster going forward.

I'll reserve judgement on the deal until I can see the new Canucks play, adjust and develop but I think Gillis made the best of a bad situation (that is, pulling the trigger on a deal where you are losing the best player).

In the short term I am very curious to see whether Kassian can play above a fourth line roll (assuming the "third" line is the one with the tough matchups) and what Gragnani has to offer. By the way it looks like despite shooting left Gragnani has played much of his even strength ice time on the side side of a pairing with either Christian Ehrhoff or Jordan Leopold.

Reefer2 wrote:All this talk about what CH did not do or could not skate yet he played only 71 NHL games. In 63 games this season he has 33 points and is on pace for 43 points which is more than Kesler/Sedin did in their first season. What more did they want from this kid? He could not skate is a comment I hear a lot, interesting as in the games I watched he did not seem to be that out played or out skated. He worked hard to come back and be good in his own end, his +8 puts him 8th on the team.

I think Hodgson's great numbers are a reflection on both his work as a young player with a bright future, and the work done by the coaching staff to put him on the ice in situations where he can be effective (although obviously they tried him in a few roles this year, as HW mentioned most of them didn't really work out).

Hodgson played against the weakest competition of any top nine forward and was the only center (other than Henrik Sedin of course) to start more than 50% of his shifts in the offensive zone.

While his production in those circumstances is admirable and had Canucks fans (and now probably has Sabres fans) excited about his potential, it will be another matter to see whether he can produce even at the same rate when he is playing defensive minutes and is playing against the opponents top players. Or for that matter in tight checking playoff games when coaches are looking to exploit the Canucks weakest defensive line (ie. Cody's).

At the end of the day I think Gillis traded some of his organizational surplus (two way centers) to stock up on organizational shortcomings (big, mean forwards with some skill and young defensemen ready to play at the NHL level) - even a marginal loss from an asset management perspective can be an improvement.

Shocking deal. Didn't expect Hodgson to be traded at this time without an established player in return. When I heard Pahlsson was coming here I was envisioning a shutdown 4th line of Pahlsson, Malhotra, and Lapierre.

Anyhow... Kassian huh? The guy is a big dude. He's ready to play on the bottom 6 lines and I'm not sure if it'll hurt his development at all playing him there the rest of the season. I don't think he'll end up being a better player than Hodgson but Kassian is a valuable commodity with his size and skillset. From the last draft, it's clear that Gillis is building a team that is going to have some size. Having Jensen and Kassian in the system is pretty exciting stuff. With that said, I love Cody and really believe in him. I was always worried that he wasn't happy here and was just bidding his time, but I didn't think it was going to be a problem considering the Canucks hold his rights until it's pretty much time for the Sedins to call it quits.

I like this trade going forward for the next 4-6 years. Not so much after that but who cares right?

You have got to give to get. I doubt we could have made this deal by trading Raymond

And ya, its too early to say who won the deal. I think as most have said it is a deal that addresses the needs of both teams therefore it is a good hockey deal, not what we are used to on deadline day.

I believe the Canucks made a decision a month or so ago that to get what they wanted up front they were probably going to have to deal Cody so from there it was trying to address the need as best as possible for today and moving forward. He was not traded because he was a piss poor player, quite the opposite so I think the Canucks know exactly what they gave up.

Just going through all the pros and cons of this deal and there are no doubt plenty of both. One potentially big con I can't ignore is the fact that the twins may not be able to deliver what we're all hoping for come Spring and we may have just let our scoring relief walk. Since Xmas the Sedins have looked completely gassed to me and that's no surprise given that they've arguably played more hockey and travelled more than anybody in the past calendar year. I really worry they won't be able to last through another long grind when they appear to be struggling to recover from the past and current one. if they get shut down, then what? Cody provided a pretty nice answer all year. We won't get that from Zack, not for what he provides and not this year...unless he magically clicks with the twins and helps rejuvenate them with his size and toughness...not likely.

We're better prepared to grind it out ugly with all the nasty looking teams in our way, and maybe that is the way to go, but I wonder if we're sacrificing a bit of our edge/identity of a team that out skills its opponents and KO's them on the PP.

What I don't like about how the Canucks handled CH and KB4 is that they seem to be having issues between the coach and the players and in both cases the players lost. This can be expected from a GM like MG as he seems to be a guy who goes to bat for his guys and AV seems to be his guy.

All this talk about what CH did not do or could not skate yet he played only 71 NHL games. In 63 games this season he has 33 points and is on pace for 43 points which is more than Kesler/Sedin did in their first season. What more did they want from this kid? He could not skate is a comment I hear a lot, interesting as in the games I watched he did not seem to be that out played or out skated. He worked hard to come back and be good in his own end, his +8 puts him 8th on the team.

AV is an old style coach who has proven to like certain types of players and screws with the minds of the players he does not like and IMHO and when he acts like this it hurts the team more than helps. Look no further than last season in the playoffs, a KB4 who was not mind fucked by AV would have helped more than Alberts or even Rome. Kesler had an injury and no last year CH would not have helped but this year if Kesler went down CH would be a hell of a lot better than the scraps we picked up today.

In a few years maybe Kassian may be what we need but he will not help the team this playoffs more than CH. I would not mind this trade in the off season I just think it is a stupid trade now to do, none of the players we picked up today has any offensive potential like CH and come playoffs if Kesler or Sedin gets injured there is no one who can fill that spot.

I completely agree with your asessment. I feel that we have given up a future All Star for a couple of wild cards.We have now gone from a three line team into a regular two line team. Honestly I felt ill when I saw this trade.Kassian may prove to be a very good player but power type forwards tend to take years to develope. Hodgson wasblossoming and doing an above average job with limited minutes as a third line center. If by chance we meet Boston or whoever in the playoffs; I would have preferred a clutch performer like Hodgson rather than some even younger players who are very unproven. The Bruins are a nasty bunch. They have their cup. Physical intimidation with young green playerswill just make them more ornery. Toughness was important to address but I feel the timing was very much off.Hodgson just seems to flourish in high pressure situations especially as he has gained more confidence. I am perplexed. I trust Gillis and his judgement though; I sure hope Im wrong.

I'm just gonna go right ahead and disagree with everyone who says that the Canucks have a skewed perspective and are focused solely on building to beat the Bruins. Last year it was indeed Boston who shone a giant spotlight on this teams lack of physical toughness, but they weren't the first to do it, they just used the brightest bulbs.

Chicago took it to this team in a major way two years in a row, and they even stepped it up for 3 games last year.

Nashville was quite adept at shutting down everyone but Kesler.

San Jose routinely walks all over our players after the whistle, fortunately we live in a few of their player's heads, but they still try and run roughshod all over the Canucks when we meet up with them.

Now, as much as we have been beating our opponents with skill and scoring in the regular season, and also for a 15 games in the playoffs last year, we have seen what happens to this team when the refs put the whistles away and suddenly the Canucks are the benefactors of a whopping 1 or 2 powerplays. We have also seen what happens when the PP dries up a little. The team suddenly has to rely completely on the goalie to bail them out.

We all know that the officials are going to put their whistles away again in April and May, they are already giving many teams a free hand at times. There was no way that Detroit should have had a 16-4 (or was it 5?) advantage in PP opportunities going into our last game with them. Dallas got away with several infractions towards the end of the last game. So did Vancouver. Moreover, when the refs do decide to use their whistle and the Canucks earn a PP, the refs then put the whistle away and let the other team do whatever they want to kill the penalty, often calling the Canucks for something taking them off the powerplay. I know, so far all I've done is talk special teams and poor officiating.....

Hodgson was a guy that added 5-on-5 and PP scoring to this team, but he wasn't out against opponent's top checking lines, or top defensive duos. Hodgson often was out muscled by the bigger, stronger, defenders when the refs decided to read a different rule book. Come the playoffs I think we would have seen Hodgson get bullied around just like the Sedins did in the past, our 3rd line would have dried right up, and we would be a two line team that was in over our heads whenever our 3rd line was on the ice or trapped in our own end. We now have Pahlsson, a gritty, checking, shutdown center who can skate both ways and is smart enough to get on the scoresheet from time to time. He has also won a Stanley Cup and got serious consideration for the Conn Smythe while doing so. Kassian is big. Most of the hockey heads that have talked about him have used words like, "mean", "big", "snarling", "bruising", "tough", "rough", "physical", etc. They have also commented on his ability to skate, and do so with some decent speed. He's easily as fast as Hodgson, and I would venture to say a bit faster once he's got a full head of steam. When the refs put the whistle away, point this guy at the net and say "go". As much as I loved having CoHo on this team, the kid wasn't ready for the tough playoff games that were going to have us all howling at the referee's and crying foul every other minute. Kassian also might be what MayRay needs to become effective once more.

Since Raymond has demonstrated that he simply doesn't want to go to the net, but would rather shoot from the perimeter and get lucky goals from odd angles, well a guy like Kassian could start to up Princess 21's point totals. If Raymond can learn to shoot the puck somewhere other than right at the goaltender's chest, Kassian's net crashing could net the Canucks a pile of garbage goals. Add a guy like Pahlsson, Malhotra, or Lapierre to the mix and you have a massive bruiser making goaltenders nervous and keeping defensemen honest, a hard working digger who will go to the corners and chip the puck out, and a shooter who can gain the zone with speed.....and said shooter has already proven that he is quite adept at pulling up and skating back to the blueline in order to let his linemates catch up and get into the zone.

Kassian may also work well with the Sedin's when the Canucks are facing an opponent who has decided to pick on our top two players while they turn the other cheek. Burrows is a smart guy and finds the open areas and moves around alot giving defenders fits while they try to prevent two of the league's best playmaking forwards from finding him with the puck. Kassian will simply make room. The Sedins can cycle and dance around with the puck, and when they finally get bored of passing it back and forth and either throw it at the net themselves or feed the point for a shot, Kassian will be right there harassing two defenders and a goaltender. So if at that point the Sedins can remember to get to the net (particularly Henrik), they should find themselves having an easier time of it.

That brings me to my final point for Kassian. He brings the Canucks more versatility than Hodgson did. Kassian is big enough and fast enough that he may be able to kill penalties, he is definitely strong enough to be battling in his own end. Hodgson was often out worked in the defensive end, and certainly not a PK guy. Kassian can slide up and down the roster to fill a spot as needed. Hodgson was stuck at center on the 3rd line. CoHo showed that he didn't have the chops for the wing, and that meant he was going to be playing behind Hank and Kesler and never really with them.

Obviously the ideal situation here would have been to get Kassian for Raymond, Sulzer, and a pick, while keeping Hodgson to play with Kassian.